


where the sun bestows

by fypical



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Healing & Redemption, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6884803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fypical/pseuds/fypical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So he's not a hero, but he's not a monster anymore, either. Maybe his home, his true home, is somewhere between the two. </p>
<p>(Post-CA:CW; Bucky-centric healing & redemption arc. Featuring Steve, T'Challa, Sam, the Secret New Avengers, and thrilling heroics.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. our slow crop

**Author's Note:**

> As it turns out I've found myself really needing to write some sort of CA:CW followup that includes the "Bucky heals and gets some redemption" arc we didn't get to have in canon. So I rewrote canon a little bit to make room for that. 
> 
> Title from Jack Gilbert's "Template".

* * *

 

_So I live_  
_effortlessly by the ocean, where the sun bestows_  
_and bestows and I return nothing._

—Jack Gilbert, from “Template,”  _Collected Poems_ (Knopf, 2012)

 

* * *

  

The maid enters the hotel room earlier than she is supposed to, one day, while the guest is gone, finds what she is not supposed to find before he has the chance to put the rest of his plan into action. For all its ignorance of the laws it claims to uphold, there is little the CIA can do in the face of evidence that damns them for ignoring it in the first place, refusing to vet their own people. So damned is the Secretary of State, for jumping the gun, applying laws before they are ratified; too eager to have control over human weapons once again, too ready to have them as his property once more. The head of the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Secretary of State are both of them quietly asked to resign. It is not a permanent solution, but: President Matthew Ellis has made a lion’s share of mistakes. He will not have another attached to his name.

The UN Security Council meets while the rest of the world is busy putting itself back together. Russia vetoes the Accords. 

It makes going to Siberia an even bigger risk than before, but Bucky has no intention of risking the safety of whatever countries Zemo – not even HYDRA, as it turns out, no matter how much the name pings around his brain like it’s supposed to mean something – is targeting. His own discomfort becomes secondary, how angry he is at the country that still lists him among its war heroes even as it treats him like some sort of animal falls by the wayside. If he can stop this before it happens, none of the rest of it matters.

It doesn’t matter, anyway. They’re dead.

Bucky doesn’t shoot Zemo on sight. But they’d been followed, and he watches with not very much sympathy as T’Challa hears Zemo out, then drags him forcibly away. (The king doesn’t need blood on his hands, not like this, but Bucky hopes he ensures that Zemo never sees the sun again. Whatever he feels that needs to entail.)

There’s an archive in the basement, one he didn’t realize he even knew about until he’s climbing back on the elevator, Steve trailing after him like _he’s_ the one with the Kalashnikov in his hands, like it’s always been Steve watching Bucky’s six instead of the other way around. It gets colder the further down they go, and Bucky watches as Steve’s shoulders go tenser and tenser, the line of his jaw, clenched hard. Bucky can’t tell if he just doesn’t feel it the same or if he’s so used to being _colder_ that Siberia doesn’t measure up. (He isn’t letting himself think about it, or anything else.)

They ransack the archives. There’s too much in there to torch the place, evidence piled high and neatly organized, and Bucky wonders what the fucking point of it all is. Why keep records of activities the world was never supposed to know about? Why bother with the risk of having anyone ever find it out? But then: maybe this is why he has always been better at on-the-ground work, than the big picture. He has a whole shelf in the place, an entire set of boxes dedicated to what they did to him, what they made him do. Mission reports, details on _experiments_ , new projects, new methods, and he’s sick by the time he gets through one file, wants to destroy it all because he’s never going to be able to look at himself in the mirror again if he has to relive it all in cold clinical printed detail.They don’t burn the place. Steve makes a call on some kind of miracle phone that shouldn’t get reception this far out, to Romanoff maybe, because it seems like they trust each other more than either trusts anyone else (except perhaps Sam, who doesn’t trust _him_ at all). Stark is there when they emerge, and – well, Bucky doesn’t remember a lot of what happens next.

Violence, to be sure, Steve making his case and Stark ignoring it, and if Steve wasn’t there and throwing himself into the fight every chance he gets, Bucky might have just let it happen, let Stark do whatever he wanted, because Howard had looked so goddamn shocked and he hadn’t done a thing, hadn’t even _recognized_ the name Howard called him, hadn’t thought of anything other than the orders, avoiding whatever Karpov might’ve had in place should he fail.

They leave the place a wreck, less Steve’s shield and with new blood, new bruises, but Steve gathers the files as he goes, nudges them out into the snow until Bucky thinks he might be able to stand on his own, make it at least to the Quinjet without his world going sideways again, without cold shock hitting him out of nowhere. There are already coordinates entered, and Bucky’s ears are roaring but he can see the surprise on Steve’s face, realization of something he did not expect. But he doesn’t change anything, just sets the jet to fly there automatically because planes in this future fly themselves, it would seem, shoves the boxes of files someplace safe, and sits himself down real close to Bucky.

Steve, Bucky, and Bucky’s past fly to Wakanda.

Bucky doesn’t stay awake the whole time; loses the plot an hour in, feels himself drifting away but can’t do anything to fight it, not with his head pounding and his body aching, ribs a sharp pain every time he tries to take a breath, tendons under metal torn from a blast he expected to kill him. It occurs to him, before the tiny world of the jet and Steve next to him vanishes from view, that he’s done all of this just by existing; skewed Steve’s perspective so far that he doesn’t know if Steve has any friends left.

He wakes under the weight of sheets, in a bed that is too soft, and the back of his hand itches. Panic crawls up his throat except it’s itchy because someone’s hand is pressing uncomfortably on the IV in it, and Bucky manages to drag his eyes upward from his hand to Steve’s face, sleep-soft but still looking like he hasn’t even had a nap in decades. He’s so goddamn glad Steve isn’t awake, doesn’t think he can even speak without choking on everything he hasn’t yet had time to say. There’s a newspaper on the side table; Bucky cranes around, winces as every part of him protests the movement, and pulls it closer.  ** _RUSSIA VETOES SOKOVIA ACCORDS_** , and then, smaller, down the page, the scandal that follows. He finds no mention of his own name, breathes out in relief, because if the press knows anything about this he might never be free the way he thinks he’s supposed to be. But Ross – both of them – no longer has control over his fate, and **_PRESIDENTIAL PARDON IN ABSENTIA_** floats up from the page.

The people who fought for Steve, who put themselves in harm’s way so he could go and fix the mistakes he was forced to make, given pardons for breaking a law that no longer applies, records expunged, honours restored. He knows some of them have children; is gladder than he can even conceive that he hasn’t destroyed yet more families. Hopes that they can get to go home the way he won’t ever be able to; they, at least, deserve that. Whatever kind of miracle painkillers they have in his system (he tries not to think about _that_ , either) work wonders but he’s groggy within minutes of waking, barely able to keep his eyes open. Still: the sight of Steve this time, still with bruises and looking worse for wear like he used to every time Bucky dragged _him_ out of a losing battle, is enough that when he slips back to sleep, his dreams are blessedly vague and mostly harmless.

When next he wakes, Steve is not there, and the panic happens, this time, chokes him and sends him shaking, shouting, until T’Challa himself comes in, puts a hand against his shoulder that is not injured, steadies him if only by keeping him still. They don’t sedate him, and he’s never been so grateful to be awake and have to push through how his heart stutters, the way his breath catches and his mind buzzes. It’s an anticlimax, anyway, because Steve is only getting his own medical attention, something about healing too fast to do it correctly, and they’re more interested anyway in appraising him of what _his_ injuries are, their prognoses and just how long he’s going to be stuck in the hospital bed. 

T’Challa stays the whole time, watches him with an expression equal parts wary and concerned. Bucky doesn’t know what to do about it, about the dual images of the man protecting him and the one who tried to tear out his throat. (If nothing else, he supposes, should his mind turn on him again, T’Challa seems much more capable at dealing with it than Steve – but it’s a burden he can’t ask either of them to bear.) None of it surprises him: cracked ribs from the fall, a miracle his jaw didn’t break, injuries healed so fast that they worry the internal wounds have not healed correctly. (He knows better, remembers vaguely hearing _internal bleeding, bruised_ … something, after he was dragged from the ravine.)

The worst of it is when the doctors step aside and some sort of hybrid doctor-tech fixes him with a gaze that’s firm but still sympathetic (he doesn’t know what to do with _that_ , either), tells him that his arm is damaged and they don’t know how to fix it, yet, because of the _organic integration_. Bucky doesn’t think he even knew; or if he did, maybe just thinking about it was too hard. There are a lot of things that have been too hard to think about, and now that his brain is slightly less scrambled it’s less that the memories have been wiped clean and more that there are just some things his mind refuses to touch upon. It’s not useless, isn’t totally immobile or a dead weight and for that he’s grateful, but he ends up in a sling anyway because his shoulder’s– 

Well, the doctors use medical jargon that flies right over his head, but he can get the gist of what they’re saying: too FUBAR to support the weight of his arm when it’s not working right. He’s been this badly fucked up before, but not in a long while. Right now his arm is mostly dead weight, and even if he wants to sit up it needs support, and the sling isn’t the most comfortable thing he’s ever worn, but… 

He’s alive.

And Bucky had a pretty okay thing going, in Bucharest. Somehow managed to finagle himself a place of his own, no bigger than he needed and with neighbours that didn’t ask too many questions. (Hadn’t really needed to worry about whether he was in a good part of town or not; something about the set of his jaw has most people who’d get stupid think otherwise.) This isn’t that, it’s not the careful quiet independence he’d carved out for himself, but he’s not dead and he’s not in prison and even the hospital wing he’s in is more impressive than anything he remembers seeing. And if that means giving up a little bit of solitude, having doctors milling around and constant check-ups, well: it’s better than HYDRA, coming back injured and being shoved away into stasis with the hope that he’s patched himself up enough to avoid having to re-break his bones when they decided to use him again.

They do let him out of the hospital bed eventually, though not without conditions and strict instructions not to overexert himself. Bucky wonders what they think he’d be doing, with his arm still in a sling and his brain a minefield, and he’s not letting them even try to fix the mechanical failures running through his shoulder and elbow joints until he’s sure that he is no longer a risk. So if that means the sling forever, or at least until they figure out what’s in his head and how to get it out, Bucky can live with that too. He’s found, increasingly, ways to be okay with not standing on his own two feet, letting others lend a hand. 

But Steve still looks at him with big sad eyes, like every time he sees Bucky he also sees everything he must have read in all of HYDRA’s files, all the ones Romanoff leaked and all the ones they managed to haul out of Siberia.

“I’m not gonna have a breakdown,” he says, one day. Throws it out there real casual, as he’s sitting on a sofa far too big for any one person’s needs (but then: there are a lot of people who live in this…palace, he supposes is what it is, but it sure as hell isn’t a Cinderella castle, and he’s glad for that). Steve’s engrossed in something on the tablet he’s been carrying around with him for the past week, and Bucky’s not sure he wants to know what he’s been reading; for his part, Bucky’s partway through _The Halloween Tree_. Out of season, since it’s August, but he likes the way Bradbury tells stories, and it turns out T’Challa does too. It’s not his usual fare, doesn’t have a single alien so far – just a lot of history, but there’s something about the story, the chase, the way it’s woven, that’s caught him. Steve watching him has pulled him out of it, though, and Bucky meets Steve’s eyes with no small amount of defiance, daring him to say something. It’s how he’s been since they got here, the itch of aggression burrowed under his skin but doing nothing other than making him irritable every time someone treats him like he’s a tragedy.

Bucky’s seen tragedy. He’s not it. (Or, at least, he’s determined not to be.)

Steve looks surprised at the callout, and Bucky doesn’t blame him for that because he’s kept his head down and his mouth shut about it for this long. “I—yeah, Buck, I know.”

And it’s maybe not strictly true; Bucky thinks that if he lets his mind linger on any one thing for too long, doesn’t compartmentalize his entire life, he could easily have a breakdown that’d never stop. Zemo wasn’t quite right when he assumed that Bucky didn’t want to talk because he thought he’d never stop – because even then he knew that all they were looking for was a confession, and that was even before Zemo actually _did_ anything – but it’s easier to keep his head on straight if he doesn’t focus too much on it.

Dwelling on the past and the what-ifs don’t change what happened. 

“’Cause you keep looking at me like you’re afraid that if you take your eyes off me I’m gonna lose it,” he says in a rush. It’s more, he thinks, than he’s said in a while, certainly more than the short responses he gives whenever someone talks to him. (It’s all in his head, but the trip from there to his mouth is rougher than it should be.) And it’s a hell of a lot more than he’s said on _this_ subject, ever. Steve sets the tablet down, and that’s how Bucky knows he’s about to get some kind of speech, something Steve didn’t even have to prepare for it to be eloquent and moving and authoritative, because that’s the kind of person Steve is these days. More Captain America than anything else – and Bucky can’t hold that against him, because this world has less place for _Steve Rogers_ than did the world they started in. But Steve doesn’t say anything, just shoves over on the sofa so he’s up in Bucky’s space, and he’s the only one Bucky will let manhandle him the way Steve does, rearranges them so he’s got his arms curled around Bucky, so his head is on Bucky’s shoulder, and something cracks open in Bucky’s chest, some realization he thinks he’s already come to and forgotten. 

“It’s not _you_ I’m worried about losin’ it,” Steve mumbles. And—okay. It’s not what Bucky expected, but he remembers Steve about a foot shorter, sick again and curled up against his chest, half-asleep and Bucky thinking that if he could just tell the rest of the world where to shove it, make sure Steve makes it through whatever flu it was this time, he could live like this forever.

This is about as close to that as he’s ever gotten, and Bucky nods slowly, rests his chin atop Steve’s head. “Okay,” he says.

Okay. He can live like this.


	2. stick to the story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get worse, before they get better. There are a thousand exceptions to "okay". (Bucky remembers; company arrives.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: abuse, mind-wiping, hypnosis, hallucinations

* * *

 

 _When questioned, you’ll stick_  
_to the story: alive without permission,_  
_rusting away in the sun._

— **Camille Rankine,**  from “Instructions for Modern Graffiti,”  _Incorrect Merciful Impulses_   

 

* * *

 

 

Except.

Except, except, except; there are a thousand exceptions to _okay_ , and they start about as soon as he decides that he needs to keep himself in the world if he’s ever going to get to a place where existing doesn’t scare the hell out of him.

Things get worse, before they get better; it’s something he was warned about, by the doctors and the scientists and the small army of psychologists they’d mustered up. His mind and body might rebel against everything that’s happened to him, catch up with the trauma ( _trauma_ , he almost wants to laugh, except his whole body is still a bruise and his mind’s not much better).

 

* * *

 

  _They drag him out of cryo for the first time since they found him, open the tank and undo the restraints holding him upright and he topples forward, hits concrete hard; nobody thought to catch him, or maybe they all chose not to, thought it might be funny to see him land on his face, because the guards in Austria were sure as shit amused by—_

_“Sergeant Barnes.”_

_And the world spins sideways, the floor cold against his cheek, and this has got to be some sort of goddamn nightmare, he’s going to wake up in the middle of the forest again and the Commandos’ll be there, Morita keeping watch and Dugan snoring loud enough to give them all away, and his mind is—_

_(name, and rank, and serial number, 32557— and someone’s going to come get him, Captain America’s going to save the world again, make the headlines, and Steve’s going to make him ride in the stolen truck again the whole way except the end but only if Bucky gets himself upright and doesn’t throw up and survives this like he survived Azzano and Austria and Bavaria and everything else because if he can fall—)_

_He does retch then, chest heaving, doesn’t remember pushing himself to his knees, but there’s nothing, only the harsh sound of his own breath ringing in his ears, the knowledge that Zola is **there** , watching him, the reason one of his hands is cold and metallic, the reason his whole body is cold, shivers racking it and why didn’t he notice that until now, why hasn’t anyone moved to do anything—_

_They haul him up, then, right when he glances up, eyes huge and questioning, drag him toward some chair, looks like the dentists’, like Dr Gilles he used to go to when he was a kid, old Scottish man, too-wide grin, too nice for what he was doing, but this isn’t nice because they strap him down and Zola watches and then—_

**_God Steve, get here soon_** _, Bucky thinks, and then the chair lurches back and then the world goes white-hot electric, and then the world goes away._

 

* * *

  

He’d had an idea, fleeting, one of the times he woke up alone and unable to get a handle on his surroundings; if maybe Wakanda had the tech for it, if maybe T’Challa would agree to it, putting himself under again might be the best option. Had said it, out loud, too; suggested it over dinner one night and watched detachedly as Steve almost broke a plate. That’s something he expected; Steve never takes well to things that he doesn’t like, and Bucky knew going in that Steve wouldn’t like this. (A small, bitter part of him had wanted to do it just to spite that, to prove to himself that he was capable of doing things Steve hates.)

In the end, it’s not Steve who’d made the case for him to stay out of cryo. Sure, he’d tried; Bucky could hardly look in his direction without Steve throwing his latest argument against it at him, giving him those big cow eyes they both know are equally genuine and effective. It’s not T’Challa either, wise despite his youth; Bucky’s still shocked by how measured the king is, all things considered. A lost father, the burden of kingship, and now this: a group of foreigners on his doorstep, seeking shelter from a political maelstrom. As much as he talks with Bucky, wise words against Bucky’s own struggle to put his mind together, he’s not the one who had done the convincing, either.

It’s Sam. Sam, who has bags under his eyes, who sleeps as little as the rest of them nowadays; Bucky has run into him in the middle of the night, in the kitchen getting water in the face of nightmares, watching television to keep themselves awake. What they have isn’t yet friendship, not like either of them have with Steve; but Bucky respects Sam, and he thinks it’s mutual, now. So when one night – so late it’s early – Sam had cornered him, Bucky had allowed it. 

“What I’m saying,” Sam had said, “is you’ve got options. You don’t have to take cryo off the table, but… give the rest of us a chance to help you out.”

T’Challa hadn’t been as direct about it – he’s direct about a lot of things, about asking whether Bucky feels guilty, what he would do if someone _else_ tried to kill him for what he did to their family, but it seemed like he knew that Steve’s _you can’t do this to yourself_ approach wasn’t working. And Steve… well, he’s an unstoppable force, but Bucky’s always been the corresponding immoveable object; they’re caught between Steve wanting to respect him and _not_ wanting to watch Bucky go back into cryostasis. All it had ended up being was bullheaded stubbornness, on both their parts.

Bucky’d nodded, shoved over on the couch, and Sam threw himself down too take up far too much space; it’s a delicate balance, between the two of them, but they’re working on it, he thinks. Enough, anyway, for Sam to try and talk him out of putting himself back on ice. “If things go south,” Sam’d told him, “we’ll do it your way.” 

So they do it Sam’s way, where Bucky stays out of cryo, lets the Wakandan medical and scientific team do their work. They run tests, psychological and physical and all the rest, make sure he’s in peak physical condition, all healed up before they even start in on what’s in his head because of HYDRA. There’s a lot that’s in his head just because of the things they did to him, not the brainwashing or the triggers; instead, it’s how he finds new scars every time he looks in the mirror, new evidence writ across his body of what they put him through before they found a way to rewrite his brain.

 

* * *

 

_They drag him back, spend days weeks months beating him until he doesn’t remember anything except blood and pain and the sharp edges of fists against his soft parts and then when he’s cold and aching and barely healed still bruised still bloodied still barely conscious can’t think straight—_

_“I need you to focus,” says the doctor, says Fennhoff-Faustus, and Zola in the background, always watching, adjusts his spectacles. “Focus for me…”_

_And Bucky does, lets go of everything, all the fear and anger and desperation to escape because everything is fading away, fading back to their shitty little apartment in Brooklyn, tenement-cramped, and it’s July, the year before war breaks out._

_And Steve is tiny, sweating through his shirt all the same, and Bucky’s just gotten back from work. How Steve managed to get ahold of ice is beyond him, but he’s never been happier to see a glass of water. Downs the whole thing then refills it, presses it to the back of his neck, and—_

_Bucky looks up, meets Steve’s eyes, but then the doctor is behind Steve, twisting that ring, and **everything** is cold, and—_

_He comes back to the world just long enough to watch it frost over at the edges._

 

* * *

  

Bucky wakes choking on a scream, more often than not.

This time, it’s morning at least, before Steve hovers outside his door to make sure he gets up on some kind of routine, makes sure he gets out of bed at all. (Bucky’s request; he’s spent too long unconscious.)

Still, Steve shows up not long after; late enough that Bucky’s shoved himself upright, made a show at least of trying to get up. There’s something wrong on his face, something like confusion or disappointment; Bucky can’t place it, struggles a little to pull himself further aright and out of bed. “What’s up?”

Steve’s mouth twists. “There’s— someone in the kitchen, wants to see you.”

Bucky thinks: well, he had a good run. A few months of relative freedom – though he doesn’t dare leave the palace grounds, it’s hardly _imprisonment_ , more his own paranoia than any official rules. It’s better than nothing, so he rubs the back of his neck, nearly falls sideways; Steve reaches out and steadies him, a hand gentle against his newly healed ribs. What they’ve been doing is dancing around one another, since Steve’s confession on the sofa; Bucky doesn’t want to watch Steve fall apart, and he suspects Steve doesn’t want to fall apart in front of him. But Bucky’s fallen apart before; he knows that trying to avoid it makes it happen faster.

He offers Steve a small smile, rights himself, and counters Steve’s hand on his ribs with his own along Steve’s jaw. Acceptance, of whatever’s in the kitchen waiting for him. It doesn’t do much to soothe the frown that mars Steve’s expression. Bucky figures the best thing to do is what he’s always done: follow Steve.

The kitchen smells of strong coffee, burned toast – they’re making a mess of the luxury they’ve been afforded, with how hard their old habits are dying. Surely to God, they could figure out how to make something other than toast and black coffee, but Bucky’s still living minute to minute; and the best he ever did in Europe was oatmeal, the instant kind that just took a kettle and a minute or two of stirring. Not hardly the meals they _could_ be making, but Bucky doesn’t know where to start and he thinks Steve can’t combat his apathy long enough to put the effort in. Bucky sympathizes.

What _isn’t_ usual, is T’Challa there, expression just the safe side of stormy. Something’s gone awry, surely, but if this was someone here to kill him he thinks things would be considerably less _still_.

“What the hell’s going on?” he asks, still in sweats and a tank top, still barely awake because he hasn’t had coffee yet, and even if the caffeine does nothing substantial physiologically the psychosomatic effect is still there. T’Challa turns his frown on Bucky, and Bucky feels extremely small, like he’s broken something valuable.

“I had wondered how it was that HYDRA was eradicated so quickly, given its fondness for the shadows,” he says, and Bucky wonders if he’s found some sort of mole, proof that HYDRA had infected the world even more than any of them thought. He frowns right back, harmless and confused, fidgets a little. Steve’s hand is at his back, and Bucky startles, instinctive, but it’s enough that Steve backs off almost immediately.

“Figured you would’ve confided in your best friend, given what he did to bring you out of the cold,” he hears, whirls so fast he almost takes Steve out, except Steve’s turning too, and Bucky really should’ve made a point to check all the exits, every nook and cranny of the room. Nick Fury lounges in the corner, between two cupboards.

As wake-up calls go, it’s not the worst one he’s ever had. Bucky feels the room’s eyes on him. T’Challa, who trusted him enough to harbour him here. Steve, who trusts him even though he’s tried to kill him too many times to count – whether he was in his own mind is irrelevant – and in the face of Bucky falling off the face of the earth, leading him on a wild goose chase. 

And Fury, the enabler of the goose chase, who’d somehow tracked him down, promised to keep Steve satisfied and off his trail, promised to update _him_ about Steve, if Bucky lent a hand on the mission he already had assigned himself. Hadn’t accepted any apologies about what happened in DC, called it a learning experience. Bucky supposes Fury only kept half of his promises; Steve sure as hell didn’t seem _updated_ about him in Bucharest. But then: once a spy, always a spy, and chasing Bucky had surely kept Steve busy, kept him from going after HYDRA himself. Besides, feeding Fury intel hadn’t exactly been difficult; he’d been happy to do it, right up until Zemo blew up the UN while wearing his face.

So as wake-ups go, this isn’t the _best_ he’s ever had, either. Bucky sighs, rubs at the bridge of his nose. “Here to lecture me about keepin’ secrets?”

Fury smiles, slow and mirthless, just like always. Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky sees Steve’s shoulders hunch, can hear him huff out a low, equally mirthless laugh. Obviously Bucky’s not the only one who’s faced Fury’s personal brand of privacy.

“I’m _here_ ,” he says, patiently, tiredly, and Bucky knows this is going to a bad place, “because the last coordinates you sent me turned up empty.”

Something sticks in Bucky’s throat; he’d been sure about this one, despite having to deal with fucked up half-faked memories the first full year on the run. But he’s gotten better, has turned up good leads, and he doesn’t want to ask Steve how many HYDRA bases the Avengers mopped up were sent to them by Fury. And, thus, indirectly by him. Not that it matters now. Cologne was supposed to be _good intel_.

“Think you can manage one more run at it?” Fury suggests, and Bucky knows from his tone that it’s not an order, that he could say no if he wanted and Fury would just find another way. But it would be slower. “For old times’ sake.”

Bucky feels more than a little put on the spot; he’d sort of assumed that once he’d been burned, had his tenuous cover blown, that would be that. Whatever was left of HYDRA would have to clean itself up or be left to someone else. He could say no. He _could_. Refuse Fury’s offer and live out the rest of his days as a free man in relative peace. Hide in Wakanda until the whole thing blows over. But that’s never really been his nature; Steve’s the one who throws himself into fights, and Bucky’s never been as enthusiastic about _that_ , but he’s been trying not to run at the first sign of danger, too. Besides, someone needs to keep cleaning up the mess that the world’s become. 

“Sure,” he says, watches Fury and Fury only – can feel Steve go tense next to him, tightly wound like he always is, doesn’t need to see him to know his jaw’s gone hard, set like concrete. Bucky feels spiteful, because so much of what Steve did in the name of saving him was as much for _Steve_ as anyone else. He can’t fault Steve for what Zemo used him to do; there’s no way any of them could’ve seen that coming. But Fury’s offering a way back into the life he’d tried so hard to put together, and Steve’s approval is only about equal to that opportunity. 

“Sure,” Bucky repeats. “For old times’ sake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr! http://mycenaae.tumblr.com
> 
> thanks again to everyone on twitter who puts up with me screaming about bucky & this.

**Author's Note:**

> the first chapter of, hopefully, many. 
> 
> thanks always to everyone who puts up with me yelling about marvel and bucky; special thanks to kate, cait, sarah, and jasmine who see it all the time on twitter, and another thanks to kate for always being right about bucky. 
> 
> find me on tumblr: http://mycenaae.tumblr.com/


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